1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to diagnostic tests for characterizing an individual's risk developing a disease and more particularly to tests for determining risk of developing atherosclerotic diseases such as myocardial infarction, angina pectoris, stroke, and peripheral vascular disease.
2. Brief Description of the Prior Art
Almost 60 million Americans have one or another form of cardiovascular disease. Approximately 7 million Americans are alive having survived a heart attack, with over one million additional Americans expected to experience heart attacks each year. Over 6 million Americans have chest pain (angina pectoris) caused by coronary heart disease, and nearly 5 million have congestive heart failure. Approximately 2.5 million patients undergo angioplasty or bypass surgery procedures each year. Thus, cardiovascular disease is highly prevalent in the United States, as well as in all other industrialized nations and, despite new and improved therapies, in these countries this group of disease continues to be the single most frequent cause of morbidity and mortality. As a result, identification of individuals at risk of developing cardiovascular disease is a critical strategy to more effectively prevent and/or treatment these diseases.
Several risk factors predicting cardiovascular events which can be measured from blood samples are now being used clinically, such as those relating to LDL and HDL cholesterol levels. However, many patients with arteriosclerosis do not exhibit such risk factors. Moreover, moreover, cardiovascular events occur even in many individuals who do not demonstrate such risk factors and thus are considered to be at low risk of experiencing a cardiovascular event.
Accordingly, a need has continued to exist for methods of detecting risk of a patient developing cardiovascular disease.